The Pakistan Enigma

For five weeks, analysts around the world have been struggling to find an explanation for Pakistan's (mis)adventure in Kashmir. Did it not know that a conflict in Kargil could easily escalate into a full-scale war? Did it not know that it simply does not have the economic capacity to sustain such a war, for who would sell arms on credit to a country with barely a billion dollars worth of foreign currency reserves and five times that amount to repay in the current year? Did it not know that a larger war would almost certainly lead to a cut-off or postponement of IMF aid? Did it not know that this would force it to default on its external payments? And is it possible that his economists did not inform Nawaz Sharif that a default would mean the suspension of trade credits, a collapse of industry and agriculture and skyrocketing inflation?

Finally, did Sharif not realise that if India decided to fight this war to the finish, his army would be forced to choose between defeat and unleashing its nuclear weapons, and is mad enough to do the latter? And does Sharif not know what India's reply would be? So if Pakistan does not wish to commit suicide why did it invade Kargil?

The favoured explanation in New Delhi-one that Atal Behari Vajpayee has done his best to propagate-is that this was entirely an army operation in which the civil government had the status at best of a passenger. But a different explanation seems to be jelling in the capitals of the industrialised nations. This is that far from being the head of a weak democratic administration at the mercy of the army, Sharif has concentrated power in his hands to the point where there is no one to challenge his writ. He has tamed the judiciary by transferring and appointing judges; the army by sacking General Karamat; and the opposition by turning Benazir Bhutto into a convicted criminal. There can therefore be no doubt that he explicitly sanctioned the Kargil invasion. However, because of some personal shortcomings and a highly personalised style of government, he did not spend enough time thinking through the possible consequences. Kargil, in short, was a gigantic blunder.

According to this view, at the corps commander's level, the Pakistani army had formulated a plan to seize the high ridges overlooking the Srinagar-Leh road and cut off the Siachen area as long as two years ago. The chief of the Pakistani armed forces, General Pervez Musharraf, proposed the plan to Sharif well before it was executed and Sharif sanctioned it. It is not clear what made him conclude that Pakistan would emerge a net gainer from the exercise. But in all probability, Sharif made three assumptions: first, that once the Pakistan army had captured the high ridges, the Indian army would find it impossible to dislodge it. India would find it very difficult to hold on to Siachen and that would bring it to the conference table to discuss a settlement of the Kashmir dispute. Second, that as they have done consistently in the past forty-odd years, the US and other western nations would adopt an 'even-handed' approach to the two countries and refrain from passing a judgment on the rights and wrongs of the conflict. All Pakistan had to do to 'help' them was to muddy the diplomatic waters by claiming that only Kashmiri freedom fighters were involved, and that the LoC was in any case not demarcated on the ground. Last, the danger of a larger war would inflame fears all over the world that it could turn nuclear. The world would decide that Kashmir had to be settled. This would internationalise the issue to Pakistan's benefit and India's discomfiture.

This explanation makes sense of virtually everything Pakistan has said or done since the conflict began. It explains a conversation between Sharif and Musharraf while the latter was in Beijing on May 27, which shows Sharif was fully in the know and very much in command. (This tape too is in the possession of the government, though it hasn't made it public.) It explains why Sharif, his foreign minister, information minister and minister for religious affairs have been warning the world that Pakistan might use nuclear weapons if the war escalated.

Sharif's calculations have been upset because all his assumptions have gone wrong. India unleashed the air force, something the Pakistani army had not expected; the G-8 did not accept Pakistan's prevarication and did not refrain from judgment. Instead, it has asked Pakistan to withdraw its forces north of the LoC. And it has in effect called Pakistan's nuclear bluff by refusing either to intervene in the Kashmir-as distinct from Kargil-dispute, and refusing to put any pressure on India to stop fighting beyond 'appreciating' its restraint in not crossing the LoC.

That, and the veiled threat of a cut-off of IMF aid, is what has brought Sharif to the point of sending Niaz Naik to Delhi to work out a troop pullout, and to say publicly that he is prepared to explore a solution to the Kashmir dispute "outside the UN process".

If this interpretation is the correct one and Sharif does control the army, then the Kargil conflict could end very soon. India and Pakistan can then take up the derailed negotiations on Kashmir, and perhaps even speed them up, as Vajpayee has hinted. But if Sharif does not control the army, and if the decision to withdraw from Kargil is bitterly resented by it, then a pullout forced upon it by him now will cement the alliance between the army and the fanatical religious organisations and militias in the country. Not only will Pakistan's democracy be swept away, but peace with India will also soon collapse. The surest guarantee of civilian supremacy in Pakistan is the discrediting of its army and isi. Only a decisive reverse on the ridges of Kargil will ensure that.